When we first noticed that a YouTube video of a super-hot nickel ball dropped onto a block of ice was trending big-time, we wondered what was so interesting about it.
Once we began watching this short clip that lasts less than a minute, we found it strangely mesmerizing. Watch the ball of nearly-molten nickel eating its way through the ice, as if it were some sort of ultra-powerful acid eating through glass. No wonder the thing's gone viral after being online for just one day.
It's part of an online collection of YouTube videos by a scientist and video producer who calls himself carsandwater. He aims to please, saying, "With a request to place a red-hot nickel ball on a block of ice, and also to satisfy my own curiosity, I do just that."
Did you like that one? Here's another by the same guy, taking an even larger white-hot nickel ball and dropping it in hot water. See what happens:
Fascinating.